Kiss and Spell

Then I couldn’t bear waiting any longer for the attack and spun to face our attackers. All my thinking and crying out for help must have taken only a split second because they weren’t quite yet on us. Their steps faltered when they saw me facing them, like they hadn’t expected that. I nudged Owen to get him to turn around, too, as we backed against the nearest wall. “What do you want?” I demanded of the fresh-faced, retro street gang.

Their answer was to fan out to surround us on three sides and look menacing, but they didn’t get much closer to us. I felt magic move with them, surrounding them, and I thought I saw hints of the blurring around the edges that indicated an illusion. In my public guise as a magical immune, I wasn’t supposed to see illusions, so how was I supposed to react to these guys? What was really there? If they’d been ordinary street thugs, I’d have known what to do. A clearly magical situation without a clear agenda was more challenging. Having magical powers was cool, but my magical immunity had been so much more useful in situations like this because I knew what was really happening.

They still weren’t doing anything but acting like they wanted to scare us. They weren’t making threats or demands, just leering at us as they sauntered around us like cats toying with a pair of mice. Well, if what they wanted was to intimidate or scare us, the way to ruin that was to refuse to act intimidated or scared, no matter how intimidated or scared I really was.

I folded my arms across my chest, rolled my eyes, and stifled a yawn. “Is there something we can help you with?” I said, giving my tone a veneer of civility on top of irritation.

Owen looked at me like I was nuts, then got the hint. “I’m pretty sure dinner’s waiting on us, and her grandmother won’t be happy if we’re late,” he said. “So, if you don’t mind, can we cut to the mugging part of this encounter?”

Our assailants gave each other surprised glances. I wasn’t sure what they expected us to do—maybe scream in terror? I’d seen a lot more frightening things than this in my time among magical people.

“Is this part of your hate club?” I whispered to Owen. “Are they trying to goad you into fighting them so they can say you’re evil?”

“There’s no telling,” he whispered wearily. Frowning, he added, “I think they’re elves. Their magic feels elven.”

“So I was right, those are illusions!”

“Good work.”

“Tell Rod. I want credit.”

One of our would-be attackers lunged toward us with his knife, but didn’t come close enough to do any harm. “Eek,” I said so he wouldn’t feel bad about not being scary enough.

And then it was as though someone had sent them a signal, and they all charged forward. This time, it looked like their aim was to do more than scare us. “Run!” Owen urged, and we ran through a gap they opened when they attacked.

A loud crack of lightning stopped us in our tracks. I realized it wasn’t generated by our attackers when they pulled back, too. Then a small figure came out of the haze of smoke lingering from the lightning and rapped a cane on the ground. “It’s dinnertime,” Granny said in a voice that wouldn’t accept arguing. She’d heard me! We hurried to her side.

At the same time, a trio of gargoyles swooped down from the tops of nearby buildings, two men dressed all in black appeared as though from thin air, and a bicycle messenger rounded the corner at full tilt, heading straight for the street gang. The attackers turned to run, but the biker was on their tail and the gargoyles chased them down from above. The men in black soon joined in the scuffle.

“What in the devil is going on?” Granny demanded of Owen and me.

“That’s what I want to know,” Owen said, moving toward the altercation. Granny and I followed him.

“You okay, kids?” Sam asked as he left the scrum and landed on top of a sign near us.

“Was this what you were warning us about?” I asked him, ignoring his question. “Did you know we were going to be attacked? Were we bait for some kind of sting?”

The men in black had bound the wrists of two of the elven gang members, and the bicycle messenger was protesting loudly. Hearing this, Sam left us, shouting, “Hey, this is our collar! It’s my sting! You just happened to be here ’cause you’re spyin’ on Palmer, here.”

One of the men in black replied, “This falls into Council jurisdiction.”

Sam snorted. “Yeah, you leave us to do all the dirty work on our own most of the time, but then when you feel like it, it’s suddenly your jurisdiction.”